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Van crashes through Lancaster diner

January 10, 2006|BOBBIE CURD

LANCASTER - A Mount Vernon man drove his vehicle into the front of a Lancaster restaurant Monday afternoon, an accident that miraculously resulted in no injuries.

Estill Trail, 84, otherwise known as "Hammer Handle," has been a permanent fixture in front of the White Barn for years, selling wooden handles and other odds and ends out of his car. The diner, owned by Donna Hopkins and Wanda Shelton, is attached to the Garrard County Stockyards on U.S. 27.

"I jumped up and ran," said Susan Denney, a customer who was having lunch with her husband, daughter and 2-year-old grandson when glass started flying throughout the diner. "The van ended up stopping about two feet from where we were sitting."

Denney said it's amazing that no one was hurt. "Some of us brushed glass off our heads and faces, but no one was even cut."

Trail pushed the gas long enough to go over the curb and through the front of the diner, leaving a black indention in the concrete where his back tire spun.

Denney said the air was nothing but smoke for minutes.

Bradley Hopkins Jr., the owner's son, was hammering up a temporary door and wall until the building front could be permanently fixed.

"He said he hit the gas instead of the brakes, so it was just a bad mistake," Hopkins said.

Man had just moved

A man who had been sitting at the table that the van plowed into and destroyed had just gotten up and moved seconds before the crash occurred, Hopkins said.

Trail was sitting outside the cafe, having a frozen dinner for lunch while stockyard employees assisted Hopkins with the repair. He said his foot slipped off the brake pedal and onto the gas.

He said he should've paid more attention to a dream he had Sunday night, where he was involved in an accident and the police were called.

"Maybe if I didn't come out here, it wouldn't have happened," he said.

The back of his van was filled with several German shepherd-mix pups that Trail offered for $10 a pop.

He said one of them landed on the dash when the van finally came to a stop inside the diner.

"Might as well happen to me as anyone else," Trail laughed, adding that he does hate that he damaged the diner.

"Sometimes God's with you, and other times I think the devil feels the need to interfere," Trail said and smiled.

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